I’m a real sucker for vintage horror anthology flicks. There was a veritable raft of scary gems produced by studios like Amicus and Hammer during the 1960s and 70s including titles like The House That Dripped Blood, Tales From the Crypt and Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors. These portmanteau films comprise a selection of supernatural tales usually linked together by a nefarious fortune teller or some such conceit. Aside from featuring horror film royalty like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee there is so much to love about these films. Admittedly they are often predictable and stretch credulity to the point of ridiculousness, but when the scares really work, such as in the terrifying denouement of Asylum, they have an uncanny power and resonance.

Given my love for the genre it’s surprising that it has taken me this long to get round to watching Ealing Studio’s 1945 production Dead of Night, the original and arguably best horror anthology film ever made.

Dead of Night has gained a reputation as somewhat of a lost classic, and is esteemed enough to have merited mention in Slavoj Zizek’s superb Pervert’s Guide to Cinema. The beautifully simple premise of a country house and a group of strangers recalling their own personal experiences of the supernatural may sound a tad clichéd but the ensemble of toffs saying things like, “Dear me, what a morbid notion”, drinking hard liquor and casually smoking their heads off are so utterly charming and old-timey one can’t help but become engrossed in their unfolding stories.

And what cracking stories they are; a race car driving cad faced with a vision of his own death, a game of hide and seek replete with a creepy ghost kid, an evil mirror, a haunted round of golf and, perhaps Dead of Night’s most well known tale, Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist struggling with what is either a split personality or a fucking disturbing sentient dummy. The quality of acting throughout the film is top drawer but special mention must go to Redgrave whose depiction of unravelling sanity is truly something to behold and which I would rank on a par with Tim Robbin’s equally affecting performance in Jacob’s Ladder.

For me Dead of Nights’ most striking quality is that unlike so many modern chillers it takes an unhurried and coldly detached approach to it’s unfolding stories of terror, creating a pervasive sense of dread that all these years later still manages to send a shiver down the spine. In these days of hateful torture porn movies, half arsed sequels and remakes, the horror genre is more derided than it has ever been before, and rightfully so. The hacks churning out dreck like One Missed Call, Saw 4 and The Devil’s Tomb should be contractually obliged to watch Dead of Night repeatedly before being allowed behind a camera again.

In the mean time grab yourself a nice bottle of wine, draw the curtains and treat yourself to a stone cold classic.